Loyalty's Poison
by aelisa
Summary: When Bellatrix Lestrange has to pay the ultimate price to prove her loyalty, she inadvertently poisons herself.


The only thing to set her apart from the dirty shadows is the fact that her eyes glitter.

They are blue as the ocean, with just the same mystery, the same danger. Tonight, they are ruthlessly dark; the tears that shine within do not soften them, but somehow, make them all the more deadly. She is one with the blackness around her, though she slices through it. Her chest rises and falls with a soothing rhythm that doesn't fit her, her shoulders shake with a misery that is foreign. Yet even now, in her most vulnerable state, she is toxic. The rats that live here do not approach her, the spiders have all scurried away, the bats all folded up in the murkiness.

Her latest victim had not been one she wished to dispose of, as was reflected in her hesitation and her sorrow. As she sits on the cold stone floor of the mausoleum -where she knew he'd soon be laid to rest - she reassures herself aloud, her words a stream of anguished incoherence. "Had to be done. Betrayal… Just another victim. He didn't matter, he didn't, didn't… He understood why. I saw it in his eyes, he knew why." She nods furiously, as though she hopes she can banish the doubt with each violent twist of the head.

Bellatrix Lestrange would never disobey a direct order from her Lord, no matter how horrific it was. _"Make him suffer for what he has done, my Bella. Make your dear little cousin know that he should never have crossed Lord Voldemort."_ She had shivered as his serpentine tongue had slithered over the syllables of his name, and closed her eyes tight when his cold, white hand came to rest on her shoulder. She never faced him, though a brief, pained nod of her head demonstrated her loyalty. Even then, she'd pictured his agony, and was disturbed to find that she gained no pleasure from the image, when normally, she enjoyed nothing more than making the traitors suffer.

But this was different. Regulus was her cousin, her only cousin, heir to the Black fortune. She had been the one to escort him to the Dark Lord, to help him train to become a good Death Eater. She'd been there for his first kill, and she'd been the one to talk him through the aftermath. Her chest had tightened so that she could barely breathe when Lord Voldemort had summoned her, for she knew by the intensity of the burning in her left arm that he was not calling her for anything good.

Now, silence and dark envelops her, its cold arms freezing her to the core, a cruel comfort. She looks up at nothing in particular, shuddering as she feels his presence. He whispers in her ear, words that she can't quite understand. But she knows he is castigating her for what she has done, questioning how she, Bellatrix, could have done that to him. "I had to," she replies, face wet with salty tears that her numb lips can barely taste when they slip to her mouth.

And then, slowly, she rises to her feet and rotates on the spot, taking in all angles of the strange surroundings. "I am _faithful_!" The room shakes as her raised, frantic voice reverberates around the emptiness, the passion in her voice setting the room alight. "I did what was right!" The echo is a laugh, his laugh, and she sinks to her knees once more. The collision cuts open both her knees, and two thin, red trails begin to trickle from beneath the pale skin, yet Bellatrix feels nothing but her own distress. Prior to this occasion, she's felt no such pain. Losing Sirius had been a minor blow. Losing Narcissa to Lucius Malfoy nearly killed her. Losing Andromeda to a mudblood had definitely butchered a part of her… And yet, none of these things had poisoned her as this was.

She is sure she can feel the guilt morphing into a brutal poison within her, feel it attacking her cells, feel them dying. She sobs as her hands go to her hair, fingers locking around the hoarse, black strands and tugging. "I'm sorry," her voice is a sad little whisper, and this is one of the only times in her life where she says those two words and means them. Really _means_ them. Though she doesn't apologise because she kills him. No, no, she is not naïve enough to believe that there was any other way… She is sorry for destroying him.

She led him to his slaughter, recruited him when he was still a child, too young to really decide what he wanted. Perhaps it was his perpetual assurances, and her desire to believe that he was so different to Sirius, that forced her to hold his hand and Apparate him to The Dark Lord. Perhaps she simply wanted to bask in the glory that would reflect off him when Walburga and Orion found out that he was fighting for the cause… Her tears come faster and more frequent now, and she nods, slumping to the side.

Her skirts are bunched around her thighs, her robes slipping off one shoulder, and she is hopeless. From this, she can never recover. She is mad. The smooth column of her neck is exposed, brilliant and white against the ebony, as she throws her head back and screams. Regulus is silenced for a moment, and all she hears is the bouncing, shattering screech.

She doesn't even hear the other human presence whilst she is trapped in this excruciating whirlwind. Bellatrix knows, then, that she is going to die. She doesn't know how, or why, and she doesn't care. She maintains that she was right to obey her master's orders, and even though her eyes are filled with icy tears, they are screaming this message.

Sirius Black sneers at his cousin; he hates her. He raises his wand, his hand steady despite the fact that the rest of his body shakes vigorously in the face of the grief that is rapidly heading his way. And he intends to kill her, he does. Even though Bellatrix is only vaguely aware of his presence, they both know that he was planning to do to her and she did to Regulus. His burning mouth even utters the first syllables of the killing curse: it immediately begins to cleanse itself of this foul intrusion. He hates her enough to kill her.

But he also hates her enough to let her live.

He swallows the curse - not easily, for it is venomous in his mouth – and lowers his wand, and his hand shakes now. In that moment, Bellatrix sees him. She says nothing, and the awareness abdicates before she can act. Her eyes become blank as they drop to the drying blood on her knees. She no longer sobs, no longer hears Regulus's betrayed voice, no longer feels caught in a storm. Sirius sees this, and he knows he has won. He turns and walks away from his eldest cousin, satisfied that she is broken.

Bellatrix died with Regulus.


End file.
